Talk:Criticism of Walmart/Archive 4

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Remaining unsourced material

Hello, Wikipedians! I closed my edit request above about unsourced material as most of it has been addressed. What remains to be reviewed or considered from that request is pasted below. It would be great if someone could take a look at it.

Employee and labor relations

  • The introduction paragraph to this section is rather messy, and does not fully summarize the some 5,000 words that follow. The first three sentences have no sourcing and contain what I believe to be WP:WEASEL and biased wording. Also, with the way the section is currently written, editors have linked Walmart's turnover rate to its impact on unemployment rates. Being that Walmart's effect on unemployment rates is not a direct response to any of the criticism presented in this paragraph, I do not think it belongs here. I recommend we remove this introduction, as it does not add anything of specific value to this article.
 Not done I do agree that the paragraph is entirely messy, but I don't agree that it should be removed. Instead, the information in the article should be rewritten to use neutral wording. I'll re-word it to remove some bias, but you're welcome to propose any further changes. st170etalk 02:07, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Wages

  • The first two sentences are unsourced, and the citation at the end of the third sentence is a dead link. Unless this Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy report can be properly cited, this should be removed from the article.
  • Please add the following citation to this sentence: Walmart managers are judged, in part, based on their ability to control payroll costs.
    • <ref name="Computerworld 03">{{cite news |title=Well-paid professionals draw unwelcome attention |last1=Tejada |first1=Carlos |last2=McWilliams |first2=Gary |url=http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/938287/posts |magazine=[[Computerworld]] |date=June 30, 2003 |accessdate=June 23, 2016}}</ref>
  • The first sentence of the fifth paragraph is tagged Citation needed. We can add the following citation:
    • <ref name="O'Connor 14">{{cite news |title=Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance |last1=O'Connor |first1=Clair |url=http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/#1a52ebdf7cd8 |magazine=[[Forbes (magazine)]] |date=April 15, 2014 |accessdate=June 23, 2016}}</ref>
I added the two citations. Some of the poorly sourced material in the first paragraph is covered in this Human Rights Watch report, which could be used as a source, but the paragraph would have to be partly re-written to match that source. Kendall-K1 (talk) 14:32, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
After some searching I could not find the LAANE report. I have replaced those sentences with information from the HRW report.

 Done Kendall-K1 (talk) 22:34, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Working conditions

  • I propose rewriting the second paragraph. The current one is biased, poorly written, unsourced and only tells a portion of the story. My suggestion:
    • A lawsuit on behalf of 1.5 million women workers at Walmart was filed against the company. The suit alleged that the company followed rules and practices that discriminated against women when it comes to pay and overtime.[1] In Wal-Mart v. Dukes, Dr. William Bliebly evaluated Walmart’s employment policies "against what social science research shows to be factors that create and sustain bias and those that minimize bias" and claimed there was gender bias.[1] U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia rejected Bliebly's testimony, saying it was "worlds away" from proof.[1] The Supreme Court threw out the lawsuit in a 5-4 vote, ruling that the plaintiffs did not meet the rules to proceed as a class.[1]
  • The very last paragraph of this subsection is tagged citation needed. We can add the following as a reference:
    • <ref name="CNNMoney 05">{{cite news |title=Police: Wal-Mart site raided |url=http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/18/news/fortune500/walmart_raid/?cnn=yes |newspaper=[[CNNMoney]] |date=November 18, 2005 |accessdate=June 23, 2016}}</ref>

 Partly done I've had a look at this and I've implemented your suggested rewrite fully. However, can you point out where you'd like me to place this citation? st170etalk 02:03, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Allegations of wrongful termination

  • The third paragraph is tagged citation needed. We can add the following citation:
    • <ref name="Greenhouse 13">{{cite news |title=Even if it enrages your boss, social net speech is protected |last1=Greenhouse |first1=Steven |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/technology/employers-social-media-policies-come-under-regulatory-scrutiny.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=January 21, 2013 |accessdate=June 23, 2016}}</ref>

 Done Kendall-K1 (talk) 01:28, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Health insurance

  • At the end of the third paragraph, the following sentence is unsourced and is speculative, therefore I ask that it be removed: Critics point to this internal memo as evidence that Walmart purports to be generous with its employee benefits, while in reality the company is working to cut such benefits by reducing the number of full-time and long-term employees and discouraging supposedly unhealthy people from working at Walmart.
  • At the end of the fourth paragraph, the following sentence is unsourced, so I ask that it be removed: Similar legislation in Wisconsin days later was defeated in the state legislature.
  • The one-sentence seventh paragraph is unsourced, so I ask that it be removed: New, full-time Walmart associates must work at least six months before being eligible to purchase the company's primary health insurance.

 Done Kendall-K1 (talk) 01:26, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm happy to discuss further or answer any questions. Thanks, JLD at Walmart (talk) 18:22, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Kendall-K1, for your continued attention to this. JLD at Walmart (talk) 14:08, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Just keeping track of things: It looks like the only items remaining are the intro for the Employee and labor relations section and my proposed rewrite of the second paragraph in the Working conditions subsection. Thanks again, Kendall-K1, for your attention to this. JLD at Walmart (talk) 15:52, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Hi JLD at Walmart, I thought I'd lend a hand for your edit request. I've looked at the working conditions subsection for you. st170etalk 02:03, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
Also had a look at the employee relations query: I've marked this as answered. Ping me/reactivate the template when you're ready. st170etalk 02:07, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ a b c d Liptak, Adam (June 20, 2011). "Justices rule for Wal-Mart in class-action bias case". The New York Times. Retrieved June 23, 2016.

Awful.

I understand that this is a criticism article, but it's poorly written. They're quotes around words for no reason, several dead links, links from archive.org that archive blogs, and the prose is odd. I keep seeing the phrase "for example" when referring to an incident. Even the picture is misleading. It's a photo of folders that reads "heavily discounted products" but when I click on the photo, that is not the description of the photo. It's almost as if someone used a photo and captioned it with their opinion. im going to start removing or reverting incorrect information tomorrow if anyone would like to help. Paige Matheson (talk) 04:20, 5 January 2017 (UTC) 

I also noticed the following statement It is also noted that approximately 70% of its employees leave within the first year ". What is so notable about that? Considering how many employees Walmart has, I don't think this is notable or exceptional. Paige Matheson (talk) 04:23, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Scare quotes should just be removed. Dead links should be marked as such but not removed. Blog sources should not be used except for statements attributed to their authors. A mark down from 50¢ to 15¢ seems like a heavy discount to me. Agree it's poorly written, and a hatchet job in some places. You might want to read the section "Remaining unsourced material" above, which talks about that problematic 70% paragraph (which I have now partially de-weaseled). At the very least this needs more context. The implication is that Walmart is a terrible place to work, but how does 70% compare to other retailers? Kendall-K1 (talk) 04:33, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Kendall-K1, Thanks for taking the time to respond to me. Let me first state that I've never worked at Walmart, I'm just letting you know that because I was reading talk page histories about Walmart, and there were some editors that appeared to have a COI. The only reason this page grabbed my attention that I live around the Nashville,Tennessee area, and I saw the supposed controversy in the article about a Walmart being built in Nashville, and the link went to archive.org, and the webpage that was being archived seemed like it was more of a blog, with the words that were used. Also, I know there is no proof of what I'm about to state, and it's considered original research or something, but when that Walmart was being built, it was only about 6-8 people that protested. It wasn't some giant protest like the original blog made it look like. I'm not sure if the folders in the photo are heavily discounted or not, I have no idea how much Walmart bought them for, but and this is probably original research again, but when school starts in the US, they're lots of retailers that sell pencils, folders etc at low prices. Staples, Office Depot, Target all so this, so I don't see that Walmart doing so is predatory, when others do it too. I did remove some quotation marks around the word Miley Cyrus. I have no idea why they were there. About the 70% of employees quitting in the first year, I don't think it's controversial. Again, I know that what I'm writing is original research but I used to manage Subway Restaurants for many years. In the 15 years I worked for them, only myself and one other employee stayed that long. Almost all my employees quit within a year. Ive also worked retail and retail seems to be notorious for having a high turnover rate, so I don't see why it's a controversy at Walmart. Is there a specific study that states something like 70% of Walmart employees quit because the company pays low wages, or abuses employees? Otherwise, I just don't see it as a controversy. Thank you. Paige Matheson (talk) 21:32, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

The source for the Indian cemetery is the Alliance for Native American Indian Rights, which is probably not the best source for this information. It has a photo of the protest, and you are right that there only appear to be about six people. But there were also some lawsuits, and the low turnout does not necessarily make this non-notable. I was only able to find one reliable source that covered the cemetery story: [1] Kendall-K1 (talk) 18:06, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Here is a source that says Walmart had to increase wages as a result of high turnover. It says the retail average is 66%, but that some retailers have rates as low as 6 or 10%, as a result of having slightly higher wages. Walmart, Target, and TJ Maxx are facing a worker crisis Kendall-K1 (talk) 18:12, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

censorship of willie nelson album

Sorry I don't know anything about etiquette on here, but I just felt like the wording of the sentence talking about Wal-mart's censorship of Willie Nelson's album cover is confusing as at first glance I thought it was saying Walmart's censorship was a pro-marijuana statement, and I almost edited it to say anti-marijuana before figuring out it was talking about the cover being pro-marijuana. - Some guy named Brian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.105.95.19 (talk • contribs) 08:43, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Walmart (and others) unfairly listed for slavery?

I noticed in the source: "sold in leading supermarkets around the world, including the top four global retailers: Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco". I understand this is serious. Is Walmart a "victim" also?

I'm not saying "Charoen Pokphand Foods#Slavery allegations"-section shouldn't exist, but maybe even them are also victims? I note there: "Independent Grocers of Australia (IGA), has eliminated CPF SKUs from their inventory." and IGA-article doesn't mention slavery.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Comp.arch (talk • contribs) 17:17, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Insurance.

I removed the following regarding insurance "One criticism of the new plan is that it provides benefit only after a $1,000 deductible is paid ($3,000 for a family). These deductibles may financially be out of reach for eligible part-time workers". The above wasn't in the source. In fact, the article highlights that a plan is $11 for 3 office visits and 3 prescriptions before a $1000 deductible kicks in. The article also states that walmart or (any company I guess) can't do much better than $11.00 Paige Matheson (talk) 03:49, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

That looks good, but why did you remove the ABC News citation on the first sentence in that paragraph? Kendall-K1 (talk) 15:05, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
I think I removed the link because it was dead. When I clicked on it, it took me to the main ABC news page that was doing a story about Dylann Roof and regular news stories. I checked it 3 times to make sure. Paige Matheson (talk) 01:30, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm going to restore it then. We don't remove sources just because the link is dead. Kendall-K1 (talk) 03:24, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Why do you want to keep a dead link? The other links explain about the insurance, correct? The link is 11 years old. I'm not trying to be rude, but are you in charge of this page or something? I feel like I have to justify why I edit or remove something, and if you agree it's ok, but if you don't you just add stuff back? Paige Matheson (talk) 03:50, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

It's a Wikipedia content guideline, which is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow. It is documented at WP:DEADREF: "Do not delete a citation merely because the URL is not working." But if you feel strongly about this, I won't argue. Also, please try to assume good faith. That's a fundamental principle on Wikipedia. Wikipedia runs on consensus, which means if two editors disagree, they discuss the issue on the talk page instead of edit warring. The most popular method for achieving consensus is WP:BRD, which suggest that when some edit you make has been reverted, you discuss on the talk page rather than simply re-doing the edit. Kendall-K1 (talk) 04:03, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
Agree that there is no need to retain a deadlink, *if* the contents of that deadlink did not provide any unique factual details. In other words, if the deadlink to ABC_News was used to back a specific neutral factoid, and removing the ABC_News URL which *once* must have been working since otherwise the wikipedian who added it would not have done so, will also necessitate remove the factoid (or tagging it 'citation needed')... then leave the deadlink. Sooner or later, somebody will happen along, that knows where to scrounge up a working archival copy of the no-longer-functional original URL.

On April 17, 2006, Walmart announced it was making a health care plan available to part-time workers after one year of service, instead of the prior two-year requirement.[1]

References

  1. ^ Freking, Kevin. "Walmart to Offer More Health Coverage." ABC News. April 17, 2006. Retrieved on February 24, 2007. [dead link]
And in this case, one currently-working URL for that newspiece, would be here.[2] Note that this has a slightly altered title, and was the following day, but backs up the sentence well enough methinks. Somebody might want to read the full PostStar.com version of the Associated Press article, though, and see if *addtional* facts need mentioning -- I just skimmed the first paragraph to make sure it was about the now-one-year-was-two-years factoid, which it was. I also pre-emptively archived the PostStar.com version, which can be found here.[3] So the altered material would look like this;

On April 17, 2006, Walmart announced it was making a health care plan available to part-time workers after one year of service, instead of the prior two-year requirement.[1]

References

  1. ^ Kevin Freking (April 18, 2006). "Wal-Mart extends insurance coverage". The Post-Star (at PostStar.com). Associated Press. Archived from the original on January 31, 2017. Retrieved January 30, 2017 – via story by ABC News on April 17, 2006 (retrieved February 24, 2007 but no longer online as of 2016). ...Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Monday it will relax eligibility requirements for part-time employees who want health insurance, allowing an additional 150,000 workers to gain coverage if they choose. Until now, the employees have had to work for Wal-Mart for two years to qualify for employer-sponsored insurance. Beginning next month, they will have to work at the company for one year. The coverage also will extend to their children. The changes were announced by one of the company's vice presidents, Susan Chambers... {{cite web}}: External link in |via= (help); Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
I'll go ahead and let somebody else insert this into mainspace, since it has already been removed and re-inserted a few times, once everybody is in agreement that my new URL is an improvement, and that this sentence needs no further elaborations. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 00:39, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Cleanup - removal of Neutrality tag

As part of general cleanup mentioned above, I notice the Neutrality tag had no TALK item for it.  Looking at the date mentioned, I see it was a tag added 15 November 2015 here, by an IP editor who in TALK mentions the title/topic here but did not discuss specifics to improve and I'll presume whatever improvements they would make are long since made.

I about to remove the tag, as the title is unchanged and the discussion is dormant as it was just an editor input and no further work or specifics set for clearing it. I note the guideline 'when to remove' says:

"This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. You may remove this template whenever any one of the following is true:

  1. There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved.
  2. It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given.
  3. In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant."

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:42, 10 May 2017 (UTC)


Tag removed. we'll work on the content a bit more but ... the topic being 'criticism of', I think it's feasible to include the company response (if any comonly seen) but just going to be WP:OFFTOPIC to put in the mentioned good acts. Markbassett (talk) 00:48, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE weight

Hello, Wikipedians! It appears some editors have begun to notice and attempt to fix WP:UNDUE and WP:POV content within this article, including recent edits and Talk-page discussions by Paige Matheson and Kendall-K1. I also point to a note Checkingfax left on this Talk page in May 2016, saying the article violates "WP:UNDUE given that this article and the Walmart article are the same size (9500 words)" and it "(u)ses a deprecated terminology per WP:MOS (Controversy and criticism)". So the purpose of this post is to ask Wikipedia editors how we can keep moving forward to clean up this article.

Any reasonable editor would see that portions of this article are written with a very specific point of view. For instance, take Slavery in Thailand. The source leads to a news article about slaves who were used in the fishing industry in Asia to supply shrimp worldwide, and not only to Walmart, but also other major retailers. This Wikipedia entry fails to include Walmart's response, which is in the story referenced. While it is not my goal to attempt to scrub the article of negative detail, this is not a specific criticism of Walmart and I am not sure it belongs. The article is also full of weasel words.

As editors watching this page probably know, I am one of Walmart's representatives on Wikipedia and I have a financial conflict of interest so I won't edit this article. But I hope we can have a discussion that leads to a well-balanced, neutral, sourced and verifiable solution. Thanks, JLD at Walmart (talk) 15:18, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

When I first came to this article a few months ago I thought it would be a simple matter of going down a list of problems and fixing them. I have since discovered that when I check the content against the sources, at least half of what is written here has some problem; either what we say isn't in the source, or it's not relevant to Walmart, or the source is bad (not reliable, or allegations later disproven), or only one side of the POV is given. Half my edits have been removal of problematic material.
Fixing this article, in my opinion, would be a massive effort, one that I do not want to undertake. I am tempted to just throw the whole thing out and start over. Otherwise we really need to go through everything, check every cited statement against sources.
It's kind of an odd article anyway. I'm not a fan of Criticism sections, much less Criticism articles.
I am somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed. Continuing what we've been doing isn't going to work, because we simply don't have the manpower. We could try to rally more people from various noticeboards and project pages. Maybe ask for advice from someplace like Village Pump. Kendall-K1 (talk) 16:10, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
Sometimes it is enough to begin a long difficult journey, by taking that first step  :-)
If the three of you wikipedians begin improving the article, soon you will attract more eyeballs. Rather than seek to WP:TNT the whole shebang, my advice is to first focus on whichever sentence in the article jumps out at you as being the least well-sourced and the most non-WP:PAG-compliant. Fix that sentence, by properly sourcing and properly rewriting it. Then, just repeat the process, as long as you are unhappy with the state of the article. Even if you only fix one or two sentences thataway before losing steam, by definition, you just fixed the two *worst* sentences! So pick a poor sentence, the worst one or just whatever one jumps out at you as low-hanging fruit, and then concentrate on fixing that one sentence up, properly. I expect you will find, before too many sentence-repair-jobs are finished, that other wikipedians will be reworking the article with you, picking (one at a time) sentences *they* think need improving 47.222.203.135 (talk) 00:11, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice, but that is not working. Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:37, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
Well, you are WP:VOLUNTEERing and I'm not a-gonna force you to fix this article. I am not able to fix it right now, either!  :-)     But WP:TIND applies, so sooner or later, somebody will come along and start doing the work... and in my experience, once one wikipedian begins to fix things there is a snowball-effect. One snowball can start a snowman, or a snowball fight, of course, so it is not always guaranteed to be collaborative. But in some cases, one snowball can eventually cause an avalanche of changes... sometimes for the bad but often for the net overall good... and usually that sort of tactic is more effective than just WP:TNT'ing the entire article, since wikipedia is structured so as to resist rapid bursty changes 47.222.203.135 (talk) 00:46, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree with JDL at Walmart regarding the problems in the article. I do not, and have never worked a Walmart. I stumbled upon this article a few months ago and when I read it, I would click links to sources that were dead, or had little to do with Walmart. Also, I remember reading a section about insurance in the article, and how it was not affordable or something, but when I went to the source, the source stated the total opposite. I think the copays were like $10 and free or $5 prescriptions? It's been a while since I read that, so forgive me if I'm wrong. I also agree with Kendall K1, I'm not a fan of criticism articles either, and I agree that rewriting the whole article would be a massive effort. I would love it if the article was chucked, and maybe other editors could help us start over. Paige Matheson (talk) 02:06, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Paige Matheson, thanks for getting the ball rolling on fixing this article up. I don't have time to help with it at present, but you have a good eye and will probably get it ship-shape if you keep persistently going through the prose, sentence by sentence and source by source. JDL_at_Walmart, thanks for following the WP:PSCOI guidelines, appreciated. Wikipedia tends to be 'unfair' to corporation-articles, not necessarily because individual wikipedians are biased against corporations in general or against walmart-the-corporation in particular, but simply because the news media tends to cover years of success stories with a mere footnote (if that) and cover controversy with as much ink (and electrons nowadays) as they can possibly manage. WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE has a specific meaning: wikipedians are supposed to *find* the WP:SOURCES which satisfy WP:RS, and then in a neutral encyclopedic WP:TONE without any WP:PUFFERY or any WP:WEASEL write impeccably-sourced summaries of what them thar newspapers/books/magazines/televisionNews/radioNews/academicPapers/governmentalReports/etc, *actually* say. Sounds like we have Paige and Kendall-K1 who are willing to handle the write-neutral-sentences part of the job, which is good. The best way you can help, JDL, is by digging up the URLs and the ISBNs of WP:RS sources -- well known publishers with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and if possible objectivity, and for a famous corporation like walmart, that preferably means sticking to nationally-recognized or internationally-recognized WP:SOURCES and especially when possible http://scholar.google.com WP:SOURCES which have double-digit citation-counts thereon. It is okay if the WP:SOURCES are WP:NONENGLISH e.g. France 24 counts just as much as WSJ and BBC, it is also okay if the sources are WP:DEADLINK or even hardcopy-only per WP:SOURCEACCESS. If you can help Paige and Kendall with writing up a nice complete bibliography, doing the legwork of digging for sources, they can probably write up neutral encyclopedic prose that will put this Criticism of Walmart article onto a sound WP:5-compliant footing again. Once that major effort is mostly accomplished, would be the best time to consider whether WP:MERGE per WP:NOCRIT is a good idea. Depending on what the *sources* spend all their ink and electrons talking about, it may end up being the case, that 'criticism of walmart' will remain a separate article. But that is almost always inherently a failure to adhere to neutrality... it is almost *always* better for wikipedia to treat the topic-matter in a holistic fashion, and intermix the 2014-criticism-stuff with the 2014-positive-stuff, and intermix the 1990s-criticism-stuff with the 1990s-positive-stuff, rather than specifically creating an article which by the very title will only criticize. You can get further help at WP:TEAHOUSE if you (where 'you' here means any wikipedian :-) need help, or leave me a note on my usertalkpage if I can possibly be of assistance. Best, 47.222.203.135 (talk) 00:11, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
@Kendall-K1, Kendall-K1, Paige Matheson, and 47.222.203.135: Thank you for continuing this conversation. It is encouraging to see that editors recognize this article needs work. However you and others decide to move forward with improving this article, I am here to assist. Thanks, JLD at Walmart (talk) 20:06, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, Kendall-K1, I obviously agree this article requires a massive effort to fix. Your insight is very valuable. I am able to help with "grunt" work such as checking facts and providing sources if that is useful. However, due to my conflict of interest, I do not feel comfortable making suggestions as to whether we should try to correct what's here, or start over by reducing to a stub. Would me starting a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump be useful? I am happy to help with that, too. Thanks, JLD at Walmart (talk) 20:12, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
Saw notice at NPOV board ... and will try and help too. It is a 'criticism' page so the topic is going to focus on identifying and explaining the negative aspects or those which are perceived as negatives. I'll offer the hopeful part for article editors that just having an article and major points present is a good way along, and that pretty good is pretty good. Markbassett (talk) 00:24, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
@Markbassett: Thanks for taking a look. Please inform me if I can be of any help. Thanks, JLD at Walmart (talk) 03:53, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
JLD at Walmart - I'm just doing bits ad hoc and not sure how much I will do, and how much of it will be wording/decommatizing or checking references and such. I'm going to look at whether comments are made about why criticism is done -- is it partly as a surrogate for large business or american business or globalization, such as the start of the staffing section is all things say generally not specific to Wal-mart, and that there seems a lot of vague "some" usage. Markbassett (talk) 21:48, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

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Removing Savar and Slavery

Just to record section delete and reasons for it:

I will remove the sections about the Savar collapse and the Slavery in Thailand as WP:OFFTOPIC. - these are basically not criticisms directed at Wal-Mart, and are not really about WalMart.

These are both rather sensational, but Wal-Mart had no direct involvement in the events and was only one of dozens of customers for them. The only direct mentions of WalMart are complimentary - "Walmart became a founding member of the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety." and "We are actively engaged in this issue and playing an important role in bringing together stakeholders to help eradicate human trafficking from Thailand's seafood export sector." Markbassett (talk) 20:19, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

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Midtown Walmart should remain independent.

I'm Grant Stern, the person who has been fighting Walmart's Midtown Miami project for 6 years.

They want to delete the story because I defeated them terribly.

It is definitely a stand-alone event. In fact, I'm in litigation against the project now.

It's not just criticism, it's a major, central-city land use issue in Miami and the subject of citywide news for many years now.

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.0.12.36 (talk) 03:23, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Health benefits

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/business/economy/walmart-online-health.html
As Walmart Buys Online Retailers, Their Health Benefits Suffer
By NOAM SCHEIBER and MICHAEL CORKERY
New York Times
NOV. 27, 2017
At Bonobos, an online men’s wear retailer that Walmart agreed to buy in June for $310 million, workers currently pay nothing in premiums for medical coverage in exchange for a deductible — that is, the level below which they are responsible for covering their own expenses — of $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families. A similar policy under Walmart’s plan will cost an individual about $750 more per year in premiums and a family nearly $4,000 more, according to documents on Walmart’s employee benefits website. Both plans will also feature a deductible that is 50 percent higher than the current one.
--Nbauman (talk) 19:09, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Is this article necessary?

Most Wikipedia articles about public figures or companies usually have a criticism section. Why is this page not included on the Walmart Wikipedia page as a section?

I am a new user so please correct me if I am missing anything.

–——–Pandhi4839 (talk) 18:16, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Midtown Walmart section

The language in the "Midtown Walmart" section seems rather slanted with statements like

The proposal never met local regulations because Walmart never owned all of the land upon which it planned to build, yet they fought a five year fight to build on land they didn't own and the City strangely violated all of its laws to help make that happen.

and

The Midtown development already contains a Target and a Ross which makes another big box retailer like Walmart redundant for the site. The Walmart broke ground with an illegal permit from the City of Miami in January 2016, after a panel of state judges in the 3rd District Court of Appeals blocked a petition challenging the development.

I'm not familiar enough with the situation to remove the slanted language while ensuring accuracy, but the section is so slanted against Walmart that it sounds almost as if it were ripped off a website of some group protesting the Walmart development in question (though I haven't found this specific language anywhere else). jon/bla/tho/talk 19:16, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

"No AEDs in stores" section

This section is silly. Somebody clearly has it in for Walmart. "In a case of missed opportunity affecting both customers and potentially employees..." If AEDs are required in a given jurisdiction (which is rare), then a store will have them. If not, there's little basis to criticize Walmart. They probably don't wan't the liability of their employees being responsible for playing paramedic. They also don't want their employees chasing after shoplifters, because that's best left to the police. I've worked in other retail stores, and we didn't have AEDs either.

The story about the woman in Alberta is an anecdote. If her daughters knew she had a heart condition, they should have planned their outing accordingly. If not, would the outcome have been any better at home? I doubt they had an AED there. Any business with millions of customers is going to experience a few natural deaths each year; it's just statics (e.g. if you have over 6,000 stores that are larger than 100,000 square feet). You hear about commercial airliners making emergency landings because of heart conditions all the time, but news outlets don't generally blame the airlines. Speaking of which, a heart attack is not synonymous with cardiac arrest. Defibrillators won't do much for heart attacks. – voidxor 23:52, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Economist article

ICANN call it what I want The Economist September 09, 2000:
"[cybersquatter] Dan Parisi crops up again: he got into trouble earlier this year when he registered names of large corporations followed by "sucks" -- as in "microsoftsucks.com" and "walmartsucks.com". [WIPO] Arbitrators were not amused, ruling that unwary consumers might confuse these sites with the trademark holders' own."
UNPLUGGING THE PROTESTERS The Toronto Star September 7, 2000 Cybersquatters increasingly face lawsuits, not cheques Author says he asked Wal-Mart for $5 million in fees "as a joke."
The latest ruling involves Newfoundland author Kenneth Harvey, 38, who recently lost his battle with U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. over control of two websites, walmartcanada.com and walmartcanadasucks.com, which he registered last February.
The ruling against Harvey came from the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization or WIPO, an arbitrator in disputes over Internet domain names.
...They say Harvey registered the name walmartcanada.com in "bad faith," hoping to sell it to the retail giant for $5 million. When that failed, they say, he registered walmartcanadasucks.com in protest.
"I was amazed that they didn't have their Canadian name bought," says Harvey, who claims he registered it partly "to make some money" and partly as research for his 12th book, this one on the Internet.
He says he asked Wal-Mart for $5 million in consulting fees, for advice on what other websites potentially could be turned against the corporation, "as a joke."
Wal-Mart Canada official Andrew Pelletier [stated]: "This is not about free speech. He was trying to extort money from Wal-Mart. That's very clear."
...Wal-Mart...has done nothing so far to shut down a U.S. protest site, walmartsucks.com, Pelletier says. It logs complaints and features a storefront with "ANAL-MART" in big, red letters.

2A00:1370:810C:B21:50D4:B3A5:3733:4349 (talk) 23:27, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

1990s decline in U.S. crime rates less impressive in communities with Walmart

Nordqvist, Christian (February 7, 2014). "Wal-Mart affects crime rates negatively". Market Business News. Retrieved October 7, 2019.

Meaning, Walmart seemed to stunt the decline already going on. Although the authors write that the cause-and-effect arrow may go in the opposite direction. “Counties with more social capital – citizens able and willing to speak up about the best interests of the community – tend to have lower crime rates. Counties with more crime may have less social capital and, therefore, less ability to prevent Wal-Mart from building," co-author David Pyrooz stated.

It's difficult to nail this down and make it clear. On my first reading, I understood it as the opposite of what our wiki article was actually saying. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 20:46, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Separate Walmart Labor relations article?

Given that bulk of criticism of Walmart is labor related, would it make sense to trim a section of this article into Walmart labor relations? There's comparable situation at Amazon Inc., Criticism of Amazon and Amazon worker organization. In general, am otherwise interested in documenting the Organized Labor, i.e trade union activity at Walmart in a future article, but that may be a further separate article given the wealth of research/resources. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 17:43, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Background

"Wal-Mart's attorneys sent a letter threatening necessary action unless "[Richard L. Hatch]" (aka Kenneth J. Harvey) took [walmartsucks.com] down within 48 hours. Wal-Mart Stores then dropped efforts to close the site."[1][2]


COURT IN SESSION; intellectual property rights, litigation; Statistical Data Included Risk Management February 1, 2001:

"Take Walmartsucks.com. This highly critical site includes complaints and news articles in addition to airing dirty laundry that uses the names of Wal-Mart's upper-echelon management. Everyone has the right to express their opinion, but can they get away with using your trademarked name? Right now, they can.


Harvey, states the web domain walmartsucks.com was bought in June 2006 by Wal-Mart, and asks how.[4]


HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I don't know who added this information about the walmartsucks site (as they didn't sign it), but I was on that site while these things were going down. Walmart had been trying for years to get rid of it, with no success. THEN WMS suffered a cyberattack which knocked it offline, and walmart immediately swooped in and filed with WIPO (which one of my friends at the time managed to insert himself into and WIPO CCed copies of everything to him) falsely claiming that WMS was a sales referral site. The owner of WMS eventually lost it to walmart, so he changed the name to "wallyWorldSucks" - which ALSO mysteriously disappeared from the internet 97.107.37.1 (talk) 23:08, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  1. ^ France, Mike; Muller, Joann. A Site for Soreheads As "hate sites" target companies, managers are inventing defenses, Business Week, (April 12, 1999).
  2. ^ Richard L. Hatch was not his real name, Kenneth J. Harvey was, see court case.
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